Standin' on the Corner
by amythis
Summary: Lenny always thought of it as "their song," but he never told Laverne. (Inspired by the episode "Sing, Sing, Sing.")
1. 1956

"...She sees the look!" Lenny stopped strumming and said, "So whaddaya think?"

His best friend shook his head. "That ain't a Squigtones number."

"Well, no, it's more of a duet for me and some girl."

"Yeah? Then why don't you get Laverne to sing it with you at Senior Talent Night?"

Lenny played dumb. "Laverne? She can't sing."

"Yeah, but she's the girl, ain't she?"

"No, of course not. I never drove down no highway with her. And her mother is dead. And she don't have no brother or sister."

"Oh, right. What was I thinkin'?"

Squiggy saw through him, but Lenny wasn't gonna admit it. The details were different, but the feelings were the same. Well, one detail was true. He started writing the song after he saw her standin' on the corner, stretchin' out her sweater (angora), and poppin' her gum. And for once, biting his hand wasn't enough to express how he felt.

And the way the girl was on to the guy in the song, that was Laverne. He could've written a duet where he got the girl, but he didn't know what that felt like.

Squiggy was on to him, too. He knew Lenny wanted to sing the song with Laverne. But what if Laverne said no? Well, maybe Lenny wouldn't tell her she was the inspiration.

He headed over to the Pizza Bowl, where Laverne worked for her father to make a little after-school money. He ordered just one slice and no drink, because he was still broke from buying the guitar.

"Hey, Laverne, one of your bum friends is here!" bellowed Mr. DeFazio into the kitchen.

"Pop, he's not—" Laverne broke off before Lenny could find out if she was gonna say he wasn't a bum or wasn't her friend. She came out of the kitchen and said, "Hi, Lenny."

"Hey, Laverne, ya got a minute?"

"We're kinda busy here. I'm helpin' out in the kitchen and resetting pins and—"

"It'll just take a minute. Would you be in the talent show with me?"

"Oh, gee, I dunno."

"Please, Laverne. I've been practicing a song but it's really more of a duet."

"You're kiddin', right? I can't really sing."

"You don't have to sing beautiful or nothin'."

"Gee, thanks."

"How about I walk you home after closing time and I'll teach it to you on the way."

She gave him a wary look. "What, like, a date?"

"No, just two people walkin' down the street."

"Well, I'll ask my father."

"Uh, OK." He knew her father was Italian and strict, if that wasn't redolent.

She went over to the counter and had a frantic, whispered conversation with Mr. DeFazio, then came back and said, "OK, see you at nine."

"Gee, thanks, Laverne!"

When he came back with his guitar, both DeFazios met him outside.

"You don't mind if Pop tags along, do ya?"

Like he had a choice. But Lenny just said, "No, it's great. We can get an objectified opinion on the song."

Mr. DeFazio shook his head. "I don't like rock & roll. Why don't you play something nice, like Perry Como?"

"Pop, you don't know it's rock & roll."

"Uh, it's rock & roll," Lenny admitted.

"Then I'm walkin' a block behind you."

Well, that was probably as unchaperoned a time with Laverne as Lenny was gonna get.

He strummed the guitar and started singing, explaining as he went along what her part was. The lyrics were pretty simple but they had some plays on words, which amused her.

" 'Slowin' at the shoulders and huggin' those curves.' Gee, I wonder what you mean by that." She elbowed him in the ribs.

He blushed a little in the darkness. He'd kind of hoped to get that insinuendo past her, but she was a sharp cookie.

" 'But it's not the road that gets on my nerves.' Yeah, that's for sure." But she let him teach her the rest.

She didn't have a great singing voice. It was partly her lingering Brooklyn accent and partly her not having a melanic sound. But it was the perfect voice for this song.

"You'll be terrific, Laverne!"

"Gee, I don't know, Len. I mean, the song is fun. Where'd you get it, by the way?"

"Uh, it was on a 45 in the discount bin at the record store. The name was rubbed off."

"Oh. Well, I really like it. But I can't stand up in front of the whole school and sing."

"Sure you can. I'll be with you."

She didn't look like she thought that would help matters.

Still, she agreed to practice in the school auditorium when it was empty. She brought her best friend, Shirley Feeney, along, like for protection. Except that when Squiggy found out, then he wanted to sit next to her. So the next time, Shirley invited Carmine Ragusa, she claimed for musical advice, since he could really sing, but probably mostly to protect the protector.

Laverne was nervous in front of so many people, and Lenny hoped she wouldn't chicken out when they'd be facing a crowd of more than three. And then the school drama teacher showed up at one rehearsal and said that the song was totally inappropriate. "It's the worst sort of lewd rock & roll. Like Elvis Presley! Or Richard Little!"

"Little Richard," Laverne and Lenny automatically corrected her.

They ended up not performing in the talent show. Laverne was relieved. Lenny was disappointed, for more than one reason.

But sometimes, over the next few months, especially when they were standing around, Lenny would sing, "Standin' on the corner," and Laverne would echo the words. They wouldn't sing the whole song, just enough to joggle their memories.

 _Our song_ , he'd tell himself, but never her.


	2. 1965

"She was that bad?"

"According to Carmine, she stunk like a skunk. Not a direct quote."

"Poor Laverne."

"Why don't you go over and comfort her?"

"Good idea, Squig." He decided to take his guitar along. Maybe he could convince her to sing with him, to cheer her up. Something fast and happy.

He tried to say comforting things, and then he sat down on the couch and offered to help her. A lot had changed in nine years. There was a time when she seemed propulsed by his touch, but now they were good enough friends that she touched his arm when she told him he was sweet. And then she rested her hand on his knee when he suggested she take voice lessons with Carmine, like Shirley did. She even let him lightly put his arms around her and bounce them on the couch as he got her to say, "I wanna be a singer."

She pulled away and jumped to her feet, saying, "I wanna be a singer, not a trampoline act."

He laughed and gave her a big hug. But he didn't want her to think he still had a crush on her, after being shot down so many times over the years. So he said he wished his current crush, the waitress Sabrina Bousche, was there, preferably in the nude.

So Laverne took voice lessons with Carmine. Meanwhile, Lenny wanted to perform at Hoot Night, too. He didn't know what song to sing. Something that would get Sabrina to fall in love with him.

"What kind of songs do waitresses like?" he asked Squiggy.

"Songs about food?"

"Yeah?" He started strumming "Green Onions," but that was an instrumental.

"What about that song about the gum?"

"There ain't no songs about gum."

"You know, the one about popping gum."

"Oh, the one I wrote for La— the talent show?"

"That's the one. Give it a modern sound, maybe a little surf guitar or British Evasion. And no one will guess it's nine years old."

"Yeah, but, Squig, it's a duet."

"So get Laverne to sing it with you."

"No, I don't think so."

"Come on, Lenny. These are modern times in sinful Hollywood. It probably won't seem as lewd at Buffalo Bill's as it did at Fillmore High."

"No, I mean, I'm supposed to be winning the heart of Sabrina. What's she gonna think if I get up there and sing with another girl?"

"Chicks love it when you make 'em jealous."

"Well, that's true." Squiggy was the expert on romance. Maybe it was worth trying.

"And, here, you can take this." Squiggy handed him a red hand on a stick.

"Uh, what's this for?"

"It's the patented Singing Finger Stick. Every talent agent needs one."

"Oh, right." So Lenny took the stick along instead of his guitar this time. He poked Laverne in the back to surprise her, and to see if she could hit a high note. Well, it surprised her anyway.

Laverne was practicing sad love songs, which was all wrong for her. She wasn't a torchy kind of woman.

So he pretended to be upset that she was singing a Platters song, because it reminded him of Sabrina. It got Laverne to sit beside his chair and put one hand on his back and the other on his arm. She told him he'd sweep Sabrina off her feet on Hoot Night.

He loved the attention but he had to keep acting upset. "I don't even know what song I'm gonna do, Laverne."

She said she didn't know what song she was going to do either. He smiled and said maybe they should do a song together. And then, as if he'd just thought of it, he suggested "that song we used to do." He sang, "Standin' on the corner," and tapped the rhythm on the chair arm. She chimed right in, still remembering it after all these years.

"You sound so good in that song," he said, completely sincerely, because she did, now without the self-consciousness of the high school girl. "Let's do that song, OK?"

She said she wanted to sing "a real pretty love ballad." He looked away, thinking of how that's what it was to him, a love ballad, maybe not pretty, but life wasn't pretty.

"And anyway, Len, you don't wanna sing a duet with me to Sabrina."

"Yeah, I guess you're right." But she'd never been more wrong.

When Hoot Night rolled around, Laverne sat next to him on the reservation counter, and he tried to reassure her when she said she was nervous.

"You'll be fine," he said, although he wasn't so sure.

She relaxed some while Mrs. Babish (as he still thought of her, even though she was Laverne's stepmother) and Rhonda Lee did a duet for "The Birds & the Bees." Lenny got distracted, thinking about how that would've worked for him and Laverne.

Then Laverne pointed Sabrina out to him and he pretended he'd been looking at the cute waitress with the brunette ponytail. But he was much more aware of the blonde in white go-go boots sitting next to him.

Laverne clutched his arm and urged him to go talk to Sabrina. He didn't entirely have to pretend to be shy with Sabrina. He did like her, and he would like to go out with her, but he knew that even if she said yes, it wouldn't last. It never did for him. And he remembered what Laverne said when she sort of broke his heart a few years ago: girlfriends come and go, but real friends are forever. Maybe she was right. Look at his parents. His mom left not just him and his sister but her husband. Maybe he was lucky that he and Laverne never had a romance, because it probably would've ended a long time before he'd followed her out to California. Everyone thought he was just here to help Squiggy's talent agency, but that was only part of it. He didn't want to stay in a Laverne-less Milwaukee.

When he blanked out on what to say to Sabrina, Laverne put her arms around him and tried to comfort him. It was nice, and it made them sort of even, since he had comforted her about her singing. He realized he would probably have the chance to comfort her again, because the poor girl was probably gonna bomb tonight. But he'd rather spare her that. He just didn't know how to stop her, especially after he'd encouraged her to keep singing in public. It would be cruel to discourage her, but also cruel to let her go on.

Carmine came in so Laverne went to the ladies' to warm up. Then Squiggy came in with a date and/or client. And he didn't mind being cruel because he was an agent.

Lenny didn't know what Squiggy said to Laverne in the ladies', but when he returned, he said, "It's OK. She ain't gonna sing."

Lenny wondered if he should go in and talk to her, but it wasn't really the right place for the conversation he wanted to have with her, and maybe she wanted to be alone right now. Besides, he had to go on next since Laverne was off of the line-up.

Mr. DeFazio wasn't so negative about rock & roll these days. He gave Lenny a nice introduction, calling him the Polish Bobby Vinton.

Lenny had rehearsed a couple numbers with the back-up band. One was an instrumental and one, well, it was "The Look." Against all odds, he hoped that Laverne would change her mind and sing it with him. But now she was sitting in the ladies', maybe cryin' her eyes out, because Squiggy could be kinda blunt. Well, Lenny would check on her later.

Sabrina ignored him, even when he leaned off the stage and looked in her direction. He remembered going to talk to Laverne nine years ago at the Pizza Bowl. She'd been annoyed with him, but she hadn't ignored him.

Then Laverne came back and poked Sabrina's shoulder with the Singing Finger Stick. She even made Sabrina sit down and watch him "pick out his heart for her." Laverne was great, the way she tried to help him, even though she must've been feeling pretty low right then, seeing a dream crumble. Lenny knew all about what that felt like.

He saw her packing up her guitar to go. So he told the band to do "the other one." He told the crowd, "I just thought of a song I'd really much rather do. Excuse me, My Darling," he added, looking at Sabrina, "hold that thought." He called Laverne up onstage and Squiggy took away her guitar case, despite her protests. Lenny kept singing, "Standin' on the corner," until finally Laverne reluctantly went onstage.

She put one hand on her hip and sang, "Standin' on the corner," just like they rehearsed it nine years ago, with advice from the peanut gallery of Squiggy, Shirley, and Carmine. Here they all were, still together, after all they'd been through. Yeah, friendship was what mattered, when you came right down to it. And Lenny needed to do this for his friend.

OK, and maybe for himself, too. He found himself really getting into the song. Part of it was the joy of performing, and part of it was the joy of hearing that voice that was perfect for this song.

Laverne started to relax and she even started putting in moves they hadn't thought of in '56. She took the mic off the stand and danced across the little stage. He followed her with his guitar and then went back. She even pointed at him and he made his eyes crazy for "the look." And then, this girl who didn't even want to touch him in high school, put her hand on his shoulder, as she sang about rejection. Lenny was grinning from ear to ear, and just hoped everyone would think it was part of the wolf character he was playing in the song.

Laverne was really belting out the song and dancing and looking so great in her go-go boots, red miniskirt, and scoop-necked white blouse with red stripes. Nothing like the girl in the angora sweater, poodle skirt, and saddle shoes who inspired him a third of a lifetime ago. And yet, it was the same girl, but definitely a woman now.

"You wanna know my number?"

He spoke quietly rather than sang, "Yes, please." He had her telephone number, but he didn't have her number, not like she sometimes seemed to have his. Like Squiggy definitely had his. He still wondered what Squiggy had said in the ladies', but it didn't matter right now, because Laverne was up here looking like she was having as much fun as Lenny was.

When she pointed at him at the end, he pointed back, as if to say, "Look at you, Laverne! You can sing, when it's the right song."

And then, as the crowd applauded, they put an arm around each other and she kissed him right on the mouth! Then they grinned at each other and he told her, "You were good."

She said, "Thanks, so were you," but then she pointed out that Sabrina was next to the stage, wanting an autograph. So it'd worked, he'd won Sabrina's heart, for the moment. When he glanced over at Laverne, Carmine and Shirley and Mr. DeFazio were congratulating her. He'd talk to her later.


	3. 1974

"She's got sugar-dipped kisses and cherry-dipped charms and I melt like butter in her honey-filled arms," Lenny serenaded his wife, making their four-year-old daughter giggle. Andrea always thought the songs from the '50s were silly, even ones more serious than this.

Mrs. Kosnowski shook her head. "I don't think so, Lenny. The Three Chuckles ain't exactly timeless."

"No?" He strummed his acoustic guitar, which he still preferred to his electric. "It's part of the food medley. 'Chewy, chewy, chewy, always got such a mouthful of sweet things to say.' " He realized suddenly that bubblegum rock hadn't yet been invented that memorable Hoot Night.

"Does gum count as food?" his wife asked.

"Standin' on the corner," he began. "Come on, you know the words."

"Yeah, Len, but I think it loses something when you're doing a duet with someone who's eight months pregnant."

"You're just stretchin' out your sweater in a different way now."

She gave him a _Not in front of the kid_ look.

"Standin' on the corner," he sang again.

She took up the cue, as she always eventually did. He still hadn't convinced her to perform at the clubs with him, but she'd sing at home. She'd tell him, "You're makin' a good livin' with the '50s revival thing, Len, and I don't wanna blow it for ya."

Andrea definitely was an appreciative audience. She didn't get the innuendo of the song but she knew it was Mommy and Daddy having fun together, being silly, being in love. They'd named Andrea after Squiggy, since she wouldn't even be here if it weren't for him, in the sense that Squiggy had convinced Lenny to write a more obvious "our song" for Laverne. It was after Shirley ran off and got married, but not right after. Lenny didn't want Laverne just turning to him out of loneliness.

Five years on, "I Think You're as Groovy as a Godzilla Movie" felt more dated than anything from their obsolescence in the '50s. But in 1969, it helped him finally get through to Laverne. Or maybe she'd always known but just hadn't been ready to hear it. She was this time. And they conceived Andrea at Woodstock.

Mr. DeFazio wasn't thrilled about that, even though Lenny "made an honest woman" out of Laverne, a phrase that seemed more old-fashioned than the first time Larry proposed to her because she might've been pregnant (by an unknown man). Lenny wasn't Italian, and he was a rock singer, not even a very successful one. But Laverne said, "I love him, Pop, and I think we would've got married eventually anyway." So Mr. DeFazio gave his blessing. Squiggy was best man of course and Shirley came back to be matron of honor.

Laverne wanted kind of a hippie wedding, while her father wanted a church wedding. They compromised, with a priest performing it at Big Sur.

The Kosnowskis' life together had had its ups and downs but they were happy most of the time.

When they got to the end of the song, they pointed at their daughter, who giggled and ran over to be scooped into a hug. Despite Lenny's guitar and Laverne's belly, there was always room in their arms for this child that they prayed every day would never have to grow up with just one parent.

They carried her to her bedroom, where they sang "Goodnight Sweetheart" as a lullaby. Then they went to bed, where they talked about music, new and old, and then fell asleep wrapped around each other, their next child kicking Lenny's hand through Laverne's stretched out T-shirt with the L of "The Beatles" in large cursive.


End file.
